John Ivison: Byelections are bedevilling Pierre Poilievre

While Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre is now more aligned with the public mood regarding Canada-U.S. relations, it does not look as if he got any credit at the ballot box in this week's federal byelections, John Ivison suggests. Photo by Blair Gable/Postmedia/File

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In the 2025 general election, the Conservatives won 41.31 per cent of the vote. In the seven byelections since then, the party has averaged just 24.6 per cent support — and that includes leader Pierre Poilievre’s whopping 80.86 per cent win in Battle River—Crowfoot.

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Politicians can dismiss polls as being a snapshot in time. The Conservative leader may be able to scoff at polls like Research Co.’s preferred prime minister survey, which suggested that even if Poilievre’s popularity doubled, it would still trail Carney’s.

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But byelections are real people putting their “x” on real ballot papers — and they are increasingly disinclined to do so in Poilievre’s favour.

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Prime Minister Mark Carney noted that the Liberals won more than 50 per cent of the vote in each of the three byelections held on Monday: in the safe Liberal seat of Beaches—East York, in North Vancouver—Capilano (held by the Conservatives as recently as 2011), and in Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, which was won by Conservative Richard Martel in 2018 and held in three subsequent elections.

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In Chicoutimi, the Conservative candidate came in third place with just 12.5 per cent support, garnering barely one-quarter of the votes picked up by Liberal Daniel Gobeil.

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The prime minister attributed his party’s success to Canadians being “united and ready” in support of the government’s plan during a time of crisis.

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It is hard to argue with his premise that the country is rallying behind what people see as a national unity government, at a time when voters are preoccupied with the trade war with the Trump administration.

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By contrast, Poilievre has little to say on the matter.

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In March, he went to New York and made a speech that sounded much more accommodating towards America than Carney’s “elbows up” rhetoric and claim that there has been a permanent rupture in relations. Conservatives argued at the time their leader was just being more realistic in recognizing Canada’s geography and limited leverage.

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But it was not a winning argument, and he has since made it clear that if voters don’t like his principles, he has others.

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After Trump announced his plans to impose additional tariffs on Canada in July, Poilievre wrote an open letter to Carney demanding “no more caving.” He said the government had already made too many concessions to the Americans over the Gordie Howe bridge, the cancellation of the digital services tax, and by overriding the CRTC’s demand that streaming giants like Netflix should pay more of their Canadian revenues to fund homegrown content (a move Poilievre had called for publicly).

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The brazen nature of Trump’s strategy in breaching the terms of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement by imposing tariffs on autos has forced Poilievre to call such measures “unjustified.”